A man who won a charity auction for a transcript of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern calling ACT leader David Seymour an "arrogant prick" will now have to take out a loan to help pay for the $100,100 winning bid.
More than 280 bids were placed after bidding for Ardern and Seymour's joint charity Trade Me auction began last Thursday, with the money going towards the Prostate Cancer Foundation.
The cross-party collaboration came after Ardern's microphone caught her calling Seymour "an arrogant prick" under her breath during question time last week.
The pair signed a copy of the Hansard transcript from the incident which contains Ardern's "arrogant prick" comment.
The winner of the auction, Julian Shorten, bid $100,100 for the transcript, "fully expecting a flurry at the end".
"I thought, 'Come on, somebody bid, somebody bid. I'm not sure I want this'," he told 1News.
"So it's a real rollercoaster, I can tell you, and I've ended up with it. I'm happy.
"We've got this bit of paper and I've got this history in my life."
Shorten said he decided to bid for the transcript thanks to his keen interest in the moment and his competitive spirit.
"It was kind of, to me, 'Whoa, Jacinda calling David Seymour an arrogant prick'," he said.
"I just couldn't get past that. I thought ,'How would that have gone down 50 years ago?' So that grabbed my attention and I thought, 'This is a moment in New Zealand political history'.
"Well then you get into the competition, and then the competition grabs you and doesn't let you go.
"I didn't expect to get this but it happened, here we are."
He praised Seymour and Ardern, who he called a "lady of steel", for their good-natured response to the moment.
"Instead of getting all toxic about it, they've made something positive out of it and good on them."
Shorten said while he will now have to take out a loan to pay for the purchase, his partner was happy with the decision.
"She doesn't want a yacht," he explained.
He said he offered the transcript to Seymour to be hung in the ACT Party's offices.
"It's got to be somewhere people can look at it there. They won't look at it so much here."
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